Turkey:The Turkish football scene is in turmoil amid allegations of match-fixing and bribes, writes Nicholas Birchin Istanbul.
A restaurateur and self-confessed conman has told prime-time Turkish TV that he offered two premier league soccer teams bribes worth $400,000 (€301,000) to fix the end of the 2001 season.
Cihan Oskay told Star TV's Telegollast Monday that the money was given to him by Aziz Yildirim, chairman of Turkey's richest and most popular club, Fenerbahce. And he provided taped telephone conversations as evidence.
In a country passionate about football, the effect was dynamite.
Front-page news internationally, the imminent arrival of Pope Benedict XVI was all but forgotten locally amid the uproar.
"For years, everyone in Turkey has been talking about clean football," Turkish Daily Newssports editor Okan Udo Bassey wrote. "Now is the time for deeds, not words."
Others compared the scandal to Italy's "Calciopoli", the match-fixing affair that ended with Juventus being dumped from Serie A earlier this year.
Editor of the football magazine 442 TurkeyMert Aydin suspects that the situation in Turkey is probably far worse. "If we followed the Italian example and relegated all the dirty teams, we'd have no Premier League next season," he says.
Just last year, Trabzonspor and national midfielder Gokdeniz Karadeniz admitted to accepting Albanian mafia bribes to turn matches. The Turkish Football Federation banned him for six months.
"Rumours of corruption are so widespread that nobody in Turkey believes matches are won on the pitch any more," says Mehmet Demirkol, one of the country's best-known football analysts.
He thinks public cynicism is destroying the game, pointing to a rapid recent drop in TV revenues from football, just four years after Turkey's World Cup third place fuelled the sport's popularity.
It would seem the perfect time for a major clean-up. Yet, despite similarities, Turkey is not Italy, and the same lack of trust that is eroding football audiences undercuts efforts at reform.
One of the main difficulties facing would-be reformers here was in evidence last Saturday evening outside Fenerbahce's Sukru Saracoglu stadium, where fans gathered to stage a candle-lit protest. A call for their team to come clean in the interests of Turkish soccer? No: the white candles stood for "Fener's" innocence.
"If something is to come of these allegations, 98 per cent of Fenerbahce supporters have to suspect something is amiss," Demirkol argues.
"Most are convinced it's a politically motivated campaign to blacken their club."
"They call Fenerbahce a republic," jokes political scientist Hakan Yilmaz. "In fact Turkish clubs are more like monarchies", with supporters loyal both to club and chairman. "Turkey is a country where everything is changing," he adds. "Only club colours stay the same."
The problem is that partisanship extends much further than ordinary fans. Western sports journalists often specialise in a particular sport. In Turkey, football journalists specialise in particular teams.
With the football federation's objectivity tarnished by a bitter, decade-long feud between its chairman and Fenerbahce's Yildirim, some Turks are calling for the government to take steps.
Unofficial sports minister Mehmet Ali Sahin has promised full support to the federation's investigation. But few believe he will do much.
Led by a prime minister who is a former footballer and avid Fenerbahce supporter, the ruling party is no fan of the federation's current management. And then there's the small question of elections next year.
"Fener is Turkey's biggest party," says 442'sAydin. "Stand by while it's relegated like Juventus and you put your re-election into doubt."
Mehmet Demirkol, meanwhile, notes that Francesco Saverio Borelli, the judge in charge of the Italian match-fixing investigation, had previously made a name for himself heading a judicial campaign against the mafia.
"In Italy, they cleaned hands before they cleaned feet," he comments. "Here, there's still a lot of dirty hands around."